“We received a phone call from the president of a company regarding possible employee theft. She informed me that she suspected that some of her employees were stealing copper cable and selling it as scrap, and she did not know what to do. A few weeks later, the complainant called again stating that 14,000 feet of network cable had been discovered missing, and she suspected that it was her employees. The complainant had filed a theft report with the Harris County Sheriff’s Department. I requested that she send me a list of all her employees that have access to the material, and she sent a list of 24 names and drivers license numbers. I ran the names and driver license number on LeadsOnline, and found that between January 1, 2014 and October 15, 2014, eight employees sold over 9,000 pounds of copper cable to area scrap metal businesses. I filed charges on all eight employees and made arrangements to arrest them at work. Since the investigation was started, two of the individuals had left the company. We took the six individuals into custody at the work place. The arrest sent out a very loud and clear message to the rest of the employees that stealing from the company was not tolerated. The total amount of the loss by the company was estimated at over $150,000 dollars.”
Officer Oscar Gamez
Houston Police Department
Texas